At St Teresa of Calcutta Catholic Academy Trust, we are committed to Making Christ Known and Making Lives Better by nurturing and developing future leaders who will serve our schools and communities with integrity, purpose, and compassion. The SSAT Leaders for the Future (L4F) programme provides an exceptional opportunity for colleagues in the early stages of their leadership journey to grow in confidence and capability. Through ten thoughtfully designed modules, participants build the knowledge, skills, and mindsets needed to lead effectively—both in and beyond the classroom. The programme focuses on self-awareness, developing others, managing workload, and fostering successful teams, equipping aspiring leaders to make a lasting difference.

Programme Aims

  • Increase self-awareness and leadership effectiveness.
  • Develop understanding of leadership approaches and how to apply these in context.
  • Skills to support the building of successful teams and developing others.
  • Strategies for managing workload and prioritisation

Leaders for the Future Modules

Before you lead and manage others, you need to know and manage yourself effectively. This means developing
emotional intelligence; understanding your own personality and seeking to understand others, considering how you
communicate and how you are perceived by others.

Aims for the module:

  • Consider the importance of emotional intelligence for self-leadership and leadership of others.
  • Reflect on your own personality and how this impacts your own leadership and those you lead.
  • Understand and recognise different personality traits.
  • Explore a range of communication styles and consider the implications for leadership.
  • Reflect on the impact your behaviours and actions have on others and how you are perceived.

This module explores the importance of establishing a clear vision and developing a culture to support learning.
The session helps delegates to understand the fusion between vision and culture and the successful team behind its
delivery.

Aims for the module:

  • Consider how to shape and communicate a compelling vision.
  • Reflect on the school vision and your own vision for the work and teams you lead.
  • Begin identifying a project focus.
  • Explore the importance of school culture.

This module explores the key elements of building and leading an effective team and how to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of particular teams in delivering successful outcomes.

Aims for the module:

  • Explore the key elements of building and effective team.
  • Reflect upon what effective leaders of teams do and reflect upon their behaviours.
  • Understand the elements of a successful project management plan for implementation.

This module explores interpersonal skills and influencing approaches to achieve success.

Aims for the module:

  • Explore a range of theories and frameworks about leading and influencing others and apply these to your own context.
  • Identify influencing skills and approaches to getting buy-in.
  • Plan how you might influence different stakeholders in a range of scenarios.

This module explores the key elements of leading effective meetings including setting the agenda, managing the discussion, chairing meetings and dealing with problematic behaviours. It also explores managing conflict and how to diffuse anger.

Aims for the module:

  • To understand and implement the characteristics of effective meetings.
  • Understand the skill of setting agendas and chairing meetings.
  • Develop strategies to manage conflict in meetings.

This module explores the different approaches that should be considered when supporting a colleague or leading a team. The session helps delegates to understand when best to use these approaches, strategies to implement and identify the potential risks.

Aims for the module:

  • Identify coaching, collaborative and mentoring techniques, applying them to workplace situations as appropriate
  • How to select appropriately from a range of strategies to support and collaborate with colleagues
  • Apply effective communication skills when working with colleagues to achieve a goal.

This module explores the key elements of leading teaching and learning and an understanding of the importance of great teaching, assessment and evidence-informed pedagogy on young people’s education.

Aims for the module:

  • Develop a firm understanding of the principles underpinning assessment and evidence-based pedagogy.
  • Explore strategies to improve progress for all pupils using the EEF Toolkit.
  • Develop an understanding of the principles underpinning curriculum design

This module explores the importance of understanding the community that a school serves and how to develop effective partnerships with key stakeholders including parents.

Aims for the module:

  • To reflect on who the school community is and why it is important to engage with all stakeholders.
  • To consider the importance of parental engagement and how potential barriers can be overcome.
  • To consider the role of multi-agency working with children and families.
  • To explore how schools can make effective connections with employers and employability.

This module explores the important issues around accountability in schools and academies and how these measures can be managed effectively to support the balance between improving performance and the quality of learning.

Aims for the module:

  • Understand the different accountability pressures facing schools and academies.
  • Reflect upon the need for accountability measures.
  • Consider the impact of data and other measures used upon standards and workload.
  • Explore different approaches to managing the accountabilities from within and outside of schools

Teaching requires both long-term and short-term strategies to ensure that teachers stay motivated, healthy and on top of their responsibilities. This module aims to help to think about how they can be effective now and how they can ensure they make the best personal choices about how they want to develop in the future.

Aims for the module:

  • Consider your personal effectiveness and strategies for good time management.
  • Reflect upon the relationship between pressure, stress, and mental health.
  • Explore strategies for self-management to help you thrive throughout your career.
  • Engage in career planning and goal setting.

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